 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2021) |
Gasparo Balbi was an Italian jeweller, merchant, and author from Venice, who is best known for his account of his travels to India and the East from 1579 to 1588. He mainly travelled with Portuguese merchant and naval vessels and to forts and trading posts owned by or friendly to that country's commerce. His story, published in 1590 in Venice, was titled Voyage to the Oriental Indies.
His travels began in Cyprus, whence he moved to Aleppo, then to Babylon and Basra, and finally to the Portuguese fort of Hormuz.
From there, he embarked over water past the Portuguese fort of Dibba (Debe), to the post at Diu, from there to Daman and then to the walled city of Chiauul (Chaul), then Goa, [1] then Cocchi, [2] through Cananor (Cannanore) and Onor. He then went to Negapatan (Nagapattinam), then to San Thome and then to Pegu. [3] He then visited Dala, Dogon and the ruins of Sirian (Syriam), [4] Meccao, and Silon. [5] He went then to Maraban, [6] Malacca. [7] and from there to Cocchi (Kingdom of Cochin). He visited the Portuguese fortress of Colombo in Seilan (Ceylon, now Sri Lanka). [8] He returned via Hormuz, Basra, and Babylon.
He visited the temple of Alefanta (Elephanta Caves) near what is today Bombay, and attributed its construction to Alexander the Great, [9] in the same way later European visitors to the Taj Mahal in past centuries attributed the structure to European visitors. The ships on which he traveled had to fight off corsairs from the Malabar Coast.
There is little analysis or confession in the account; the account is often a dry businessman's succinct observations of places and their contents. As a merchant at heart discussing the mechanics of trade, he details the various exchange rates for coins in Basra, Goa and Negapatan including silver Serafini (Xerafims), Venetian Liri, and Gold Zecchini. He describes how merchants used the abacus for calculations, and their units of measurement. In Cocchi, he was able to see the arrival of a merchant ship from China, and was able to discuss the coins used by merchants in Malacca, and the emperor-sponsored preaching of Christianity by the Jesuits in China. [10]
Near San Thome and other sites in India, he observed on the rites of suttee. [11] In Negapatan he watched the funeral rites for the king, including when women of his harem and some of his subjects willingly threw themselves and died under the wheels of a funeral carriage procession. He also had numerous observations on Hindu rites. He describes people drowning themselves in the Ganges to gain paradise. [12] He claims Brahmin priests in Cochin can exert licentiousness with woman in the province, rich or poor, married or single. [13]
Yet his account, often cursory, seems to stress the barbarity of the place, and his abhorrence of non-Christian religions, often deriding them as devil-worship. He finds as much to fear from man as from animals. He noted frequently the danger from man-eating tigers. In the Andaman islands, they stop off on an island named Carnalcubar, which they say is populated by savage cannibals. [14]
He describes the four white elephants kept by the king of Pegù. [15] He also describes how they catch and domesticate wild elephants. [16] He described their marriage ceremonies, [17] and festivities. [18] He described the harsh physical punishments, including castration, for different immoral offences. [19] He also described that he witnessed the king of Pegu, after a war, put four thousand inhabitants, men, women, and children, of a town to death by fire. He states he watched it with great compassion and my pain, seeing young blameless angels suffer martyrdom. In another anecdote, in 1583, Nadabayin, then king of Pegu, inquired from Balbi, as to who was the king of Venice. Balbi replied, there was no king, and that it is governed as a republic and not dominated by any king, taken by such a great marvel this king, began to laugh in such fashion that he was overcome with coughing and he said it gave him great displeasure (for me) to have such said to great persons like him. [20]
While Marco Polo's travels were, by then, centuries old; Balbi's commentary is generally contemporary with travels by the fellow-Venetian Niccolò de' Conti and Cesare Federici. The Genoese Hieronymo di San Stefano and Varthema of Bologna, occurred at the beginning of the 16th century. The more eloquent tale of Gemelli Careri in Giro del Mondo would be over a century later.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Biographical dictionaries | |
| Other | |
Afonso de Albuquerque, 1st Duke of Goa, was a Portuguese general, admiral, and statesman. He served as viceroy of Portuguese India from 1509 to 1515, during which he expanded Portuguese influence across the Indian Ocean and built a reputation as a fierce and skilled military commander.
The Kingdom of Ormus was located in the eastern side of the Persian Gulf and extended as far as Bahrain in the west at its zenith. The Kingdom was established in 11th century initially as a dependency of the Kerman Seljuk Sultanate, and later as an autonomous tributary of the Salghurids and the Ilkhanate of Iran. In its last phase Ormus became a client state of the Portuguese Empire in the East. Most of its territory was eventually annexed by the Safavid Empire in the 17th century.
Fernão Mendes Pinto was a Portuguese explorer and writer. His voyages are recorded in Pilgrimage (1614), his autobiographical memoir. The historical accuracy of the work is debatable due to the many events that seem far-fetched or at least exaggerated, earning him the nickname "Fernão Mentes Minto". Many aspects of the work can be verified, particularly through records of Pinto's service to the Portuguese crown and by his association with Jesuit missionaries.
Bago, formerly known as Hanthawaddy, is a city and the capital of the Bago Region in Myanmar. It is located 91 kilometres (57 mi) north-east of Yangon.
Ludovico di Varthema, also known as Barthema and Vertomannus, was an Italian traveller, diarist and aristocrat known for being one of the first non-Muslim Europeans to enter Mecca as a pilgrim. Nearly everything that is known about his life comes from his own account of his travels, Itinerario de Ludouico de Varthema Bolognese, published in Rome in 1510.
Ralph Fitch was a gentleman merchant of London and one of the earliest British travellers and merchants to visit Mesopotamia, the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, south Asia & Southeast Asia. At first he was no chronicler but he did eventually write descriptions of the south-east Asia he saw in 1583–1591, and upon his return to England, in 1591, became a valuable consultant for the English East India Company.
Jan Huygen van Linschoten was a Dutch merchant, trader and historian.
The Catholic Church in India is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope. There are over 20 million Catholics in India, representing around 1.55% of the total population, and the Catholic Church is the single largest Christian church in India. There are 10,701 parishes that make up 174 dioceses and eparchies, which are organised into 29 ecclesiastical provinces. Of these, 132 dioceses are of the Latin Church, 31 of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church & 11 of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Despite the very small population that Indian Catholics make up percentage wise, India still has the second-largest Christian population in Asia after the Catholic Church in the Philippines.
Diogo Soares de Albergaria, also known as Diego Soares de Melo, Diego Suarez de Melo and the "Galego", was a 16th-century Portuguese navigator and explorer.
This is a chronology of the early European exploration of Asia.
Missionary work of the Catholic Church has often been undertaken outside the geographically defined parishes and dioceses by religious orders who have people and material resources to spare, and some of which specialized in missions. Eventually, parishes and dioceses would be organized worldwide, often after an intermediate phase as an apostolic prefecture or apostolic vicariate. Catholic mission has predominantly been carried out by the Latin Church in practice.
The Capture of Hormuz in 1507 occurred when the Portuguese Afonso de Albuquerque attacked Hormuz Island to establish the Fortress of Hormuz. This conquest gave the Portuguese full control of the trade between India and Europe passing through the Persian Gulf.
The Capture of Malacca in 1511 occurred when the governor of Portuguese India Afonso de Albuquerque conquered the city of Malacca in 1511.
The Safavid–Portuguese war took place from 1507 to 1622 and involved the Portuguese Empire and the Kingdom of Ormus, its vassal, on one side, and the Safavid Persia (Iran) with the help of the Kingdom of England on the other side. During this era, Portugal established its rule for about more than a century in Ormuz and more than 80 years in Bahrain, capturing some other islands and ports such as Qeshm and Bandar Abbas. The conflict came to an end when the Persian Shah, Abbas the Great, conquered the Portuguese Bahrain forcing them to war in the Persian Gulf.
The 4th Portuguese India Armada was assembled in 1502 on the order of King Manuel I of Portugal and placed under the command of D. Vasco da Gama. It was Gama's second trip to India. The fourth of some thirteen Portuguese India Armadas, it was designed as a punitive expedition, targeting Calicut, to avenge the travails of the 2nd Armada and the massacre of the Portuguese factory in 1500. A feeling of vengeance drove the expedition.
Thomé Lopes was a Portuguese scrivener, writer of an eyewitness account of the second journey of Vasco da Gama to India (1502–1503).
The Saint Thomas Christian denominations are Christian denominations from Kerala, India, which traditionally trace their ultimate origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. They are also known as "Nasranis" as well. The Syriac term "Nasrani" is still used by St. Thomas Christians in Kerala.
Cesare Federici was an Italian merchant and traveler.
Sefer Reis was a Turkish privateer and Ottoman admiral who was active against the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean in the 16th century.
The siege of Bahrain of 1559 occurred when forces of the Ottoman Empire, commanded by the governor of the Lahsa eyalet Mustafa Pasha, attempted to seize Bahrain, and thus wrest control of the island and its famed pearl trade from the Portuguese Empire. The siege was unsuccessful, and the Portuguese defeated the Turks when reinforcements were dispatched by sea from the fortress of Hormuz.
